Human Resources practices, policies and procedures are important as they provide structure, control, consistency, fairness, and reasonableness. They also ensure compliance with employment legislation and inform employees of their responsibilities and the company’s expectations. Human Resources Management is a developed concept. It has tremendous relevance to manufacturing and service sectors in Sri Lanka. Human input is the single largest input to any industry. The level of efficiency and productivity of this input gets reflected in the quality of service offered by the companies to their customers, as also in its ultimate growth, productivity and profitability. Human Resources Management Practices have been studied extensively among Manufacturing, Service and Small Medium Enterprises in Sri Lanka. The study results reveal that public and private sector; both entities practice Human Resources Management, but the extent of practices vary from one another.
Many Sri Lankan blue chip companies follow very effective and best practices in HR. These functions include; job design, job analysis, HR planning, recruitment, selection, hiring, induction, performance evaluation, training and development, career management, pay management, incentives management, welfare management, management of employee movements, discipline management, health and safety management, grievance management and labour relations. At present a need has arisen in the Small and Medium Enterprises in Sri Lanka to streamline the HR practices in their organizations. Small and Medium Enterprises play a pivotal role in the socio economic development
and poverty reduction process in Sri Lankan economy in terms of employment generation, contribution to the GDP, equitable distribution of income, balancing regional development, lowering
transaction cost, embarking on innovations and stimulating other economic activities. It is very important to support the SME’s and introduce good HR practices to grow their businesses.
